Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

—NEW ZEALAND—NORTH ISLAND. 435crevasses opened on the flanks of the volcano, whose summit, reduced to ashes,. was hurled into the air in the form of a column of vapours and flaming scoriae.The ejected matter, which was visible over 150 miles off, rose to a height of20,000 feet and fell in dense showers on the surrounding district. Wholevillages were crushed beneath the weight of the dr_y ashes, or changed to heaps ofnuid by the ragiiig storm that had gathered round the. burning mountain.Whenpeople could again venture to approach Tarawera, they found the whole aspect ofthe land transformed, and in some places buried beneath a uniform layer ofvolcanic dust. No trace was left of the " Wonder of Wonders," the famousFi^. 188.Lake Takaweea.Scile I : 300.000.Scho (crater- Jf^ Hoto lilkfianafcrater- jF3sbofG^.«.n„;chI ) Roto-mabana beS.re Jmie 10, 1&S6.mineral spring of Te-Tarata, on the site of which there appeared a mud volcanoover. 500 feet lower than the level of the old lake. Before the explosion thewaters falling into Roto-mahana, or the " Hot I;ake," rose in intermittent jets ina flooded crater about 650 feet in circuit and 80 feet above Eoto-mahana. Afterfilling this crater the waters overflowed its transparent, alabaster-like siliciousmargent, falling in thin azure sheets from basin to basin, all with perfectlysemicircular white rims due to the regular undulation of the water circulating inuniform eddies round the cascades. As its temperature fell the water, saturatedwith silica and sulphurous substances, gradually changed in colour from theF F 2